I’m a creature of habit.

I don’t like chaos, especially towards the end of the day, and my nighttime routine is very important to me. That’s why, even at 3 weeks old, I started a consistent nighttime routine with Oliver Fox.

All my research told me that babies won’t follow schedules and so, maybe, in the beginning it was more for my sanity than it was for him and then...slowly but surely, our consistent routine had my little man sleeping 4 hours straight. Then 5. Then 6...all of a sudden my baby was sleeping 7 hours straight and he was only 5 weeks old.

It wasn’t just the sleep.

He would look forward to the thirty minutes of dancing in front of the mirror that we did each night. If he was fussy, just hearing the water running in the bath would calm him down. He would honestly sit in the bath forever if I let him, just getting warm water poured all over him. The full body baby massages would relax him. Falling asleep to the sound of hubby reading; all of it. Oliver Fox loved his nighttime routine and he made sure we knew it because the one time things didn’t go according to plan, he took away mom and dads sleep.

So we’re going to stick to the schedule, because it’s working for us, and we’ll adapt it and change it to his needs as he gets older (*and has been changed 30 min here and there on days he refuses to nap), but for now it’s:

6:30pm - Dance time

7:00pm - A nice warm bath using Aveeno’s Natural Oat Extract Wash & Shampoo. We love that it’s gentle on his sensitive skin, especially because we wash him every night—it gets really hot in our California apartment, we have to.

7:15pm - We dry off and snuggle before using Aveeno’s Daily Moisture Lotion for Oliver Foxes baby massage. I truly think it helps to work out his muscles and just leaves him so relaxed. It helps that Aveeno is made to protect babies delicate skin and moisturizes for 24 hours.

7:30pm - We’re all swaddled and latched on to the boob while dad picks out a story (my current favorite is Jimmy Fallon’s Mama).

8:00pm - Asleep

Did you have a night time routine for your baby? When did you start? How did it change over time?